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Massachusetts

Jun 2006Minimum amount that a Massachusetts special-ed teacher received in donations from 2003 to 2005 by faking cancer: $35,000
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Bristol County District Attorney's Office (New Bedford, Mass.)

Sep 2005Numeral whose underlying concept has been partially understood by a Massachusetts parrot, according to scientists : 0
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Irene Pepperberg, Brandeis University (Waltham, Mass).

Jan 2002Number of years after being executed as witches that six Massachusetts women were exonerated last fall: 309
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Office of the Governor of Massachusetts (Boston)

May 2000Price of a sautéed lobster gilded with 24-carat gold at Boston's Biba restaurant last New Year's Eve: $44
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Biba (Boston)

Sep 1999Number of U.S. high schools that have hired a Massachusetts firm to test students' hair for evidence of drug use: 80
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Psychemedics Corporation (Cambridge, Mass.)

Dec 1998Chance that a gay Massachusetts teenager reports being threatened or injured at school in the last year: 1 in 4
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Massachusetts Department of Education (Malden, Mass.)

September 10, 2008Former Massachusetts governor Jane Swift, chair of the Palin Truth Squad, demanded that Obama apologize for saying that McCain's promise to change Washington amounted to putting “lipstick on a pig” and insisted that the pig was Sarah Palin. “As far as I know,” said Swift, “she's the only one of the four... who wears lipstick.”
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Washington Post

January 27, 2008Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts endorsed Obama, and Fred Thompson and Dennis Kucinich withdrew from the presidential race.
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New York Times

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Sacramento Bee

August 15, 2007A Massachusetts man pleaded guilty to intentionally eating glass in over a dozen restaurants to collect insurance compensation.
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AP via SFGate.com

April 30, 2007Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who is a Mormon, declared that his favorite books were Battlefield Earth and the Bible.
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New York Times

February 27, 2007Perfect hair” was among the potential liabilities outlined in a PowerPoint document leaked from Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. The former Massachusetts governor, according to the document, intends to avoid being called ”Slick Dancing Mitt” or “Flip-Flopper” and will instead promote himself as ”the anti-Kerry,” a “get-it-done CEO” who hates France and possesses ”intelligence,” unlike President Bush.
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Boston Globe

January 13, 2007Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney attended a gun show. “As a boy, I worked on a ranch in Idaho and shot rabbits with a single shot .22 rifle,” Romney said. “After a while my cousin said, 'You're not very good at that. Try using this semiautomatic.'”
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NewsMax

January 4, 2007The 110th Congress convened on Capitol Hill, and Representative Nancy Pelosi of California kicked off her tenure as America's first female speaker of the House with four days of parties dubbed “Pelosi-Palooza.” The festivities included a performance by singer Tony Bennett and an honorary street-naming in Pelosi's hometown of Baltimore. Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia disrupted the Congress's opening prayer with shouts of “Yes, Lord!” and “Mmmhmmm!” and Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts mimed tipping a bottle to his mouth. Congress's first Muslim member took his oath on a Koran once owned by Thomas Jefferson, and a Buddhist representative swore in on no book at all.
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Washington Post

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Washington Post

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CBS News

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AZ Central

November 19, 2006Researchers from Vienna and Massachusetts were studying aggression in fruit flies by crushing the heads of female fruit flies and encouraging two males to fight over the corpses.
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Reuters

October 18, 2006A Massachusetts elementary school banned tag.
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CBS News

September 20, 2006 Researchers in Massachusetts successfully gave a mouse a tan without exposing it to the sun; other scientists partially restored the sight of blind rats.
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BBC News

September 5, 2006 Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney refused to guarantee Mr. Khatami's safety during his trip to his state.
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Boston Herald

July 12, 2006Scientists in Massachusetts implanted sensors in a paralyzed man's brain that allowed the man to check email.
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BBC News

June 1, 2006The United States declared a moratorium on wind farms in Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
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PhysOrg.com

June 1, 2006Researchers studying a shipwreck off Cape Cod discovered the remains of a nine-year-old pirate named John King.
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Los Angeles Times

May 14, 2006A small plane carrying Senator Edward Kennedy (D., Mass.) landed safely after being struck by lightning.
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AP via Yahoo! News

April 12, 2006A poll found that 55 percent of Americans want a Massachusetts-style health care law.
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ABC News

April 5, 2006The Massachusetts legislature voted to make health insurance mandatory for all state residents by July 2007.
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The New York Times

March 9, 2006A sociology professor at Suffolk University, Boston, was suspended after being caught browsing Internet porn sites while teaching a class; he was unaware that his computer was connected to a display behind him.
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7News Boston

February 23, 2006Officials in Malden, Massachusetts, were uncertain what to do about a city-hall bathroom after a gay website said the bathroom was a good spot for cruising.
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Boston Herald

February 2, 2006A librarian in Newton, Massachusetts, was being criticized for asking FBI agents to produce a warrant before they impounded library computers. "Getting a warrant," said U.S. Attorney Michael J. Sullivan, "is very time-consuming."
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The Boston Globe

January 27, 2006 Massachusetts Junior Senator John Kerry, in Switzerland for the Davos economic forum, called for a filibuster to stop the nomination of Samuel Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court.
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The Salt Lake Tribune

December 17, 2005It was reported that agents from the Department of Homeland Security visited a college student in New Bedford, Massachusetts, soon after he requested a copy of “Mao's Little Red Book” through interlibrary loan—although many librarians felt the story might be a hoax.
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The Standard-Times

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BoingBoing

December 6, 2005In Boston a man named Jason Strickland asked a court to recognize him as the father of 11-year-old Haleigh Poutre after Strickland's wife, who was the aunt and legal guardian of Poutre, shot herself and the girl's grandmother in a murder-suicide. If Strickland, who is accused of beating Poutre into a permanent vegetative state, is recognized as the girl's father, he can order that she be kept on life support and thus avoid a murder charge.
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Reuters

November 25, 2005State-controlled Venezuelan oil company Citgo announced that it would provide over 11 million gallons of oil to poor people in Boston and New York.
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The Sydney Morning Herald

November 19, 2005Representative John Murtha (D., Pa.), called for the halt of U.S. troop deployments to Iraq. Duncan Hunter (R., Calif.), seeking to cut off debate over Murtha's statements, countered by proposing a measure that required that U.S. troops be brought home immediately. Jean Schmidt (R., Ohio) addressed Murtha, a decorated veteran and former Marine colonel who previously supported the invasion of Iraq, by quoting a Marine Corps reserve officer who told her that “cowards cut and run.” She was booed by Democrats. “You guys,” yelled Marty Meehan (D., Mass.), “are pathetic!” Harold Ford (D., Tenn.) ran across the House chamber's center aisle to the Republican side. “Say Murtha's name!” he shouted. Schmidt asked that her comments be struck from the record, and Hunter's resolution was rejected 403 to 3, with Murtha among those voting against it.
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The Washington Post

September 16, 2005 Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney suggested wiretapping mosques.
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Democracy Now!

July 8, 2005A Massachusetts parrot appeared to understand the concept of zero.
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MSNBC

May 11, 2005It was uncertain whether Boston could host a convention for minority journalists in 2008 because the city has a law requiring that all Native Americans who enter the city be arrested.
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Boston Globe

March 31, 2005A Saudi Arabian princess was arrested for keeping slaves in Winchester, Massachusetts.
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BostonHerald.com

March 8, 2005Bubba, the 22-pound lobster caught off the Nantucket shore, died, most likely from stress.
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Toronto Star

March 2, 2005A 22-pound, century-old lobster was caught off Nantucket.
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CNN

January 10, 2005All 790 men in Truro, Massachusetts, were asked to submit to a DNA test so that they could prove their innocence in a three-year-old murder case.
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BBC News

January 3, 2005 Boston announced a crackdown on illegally parked garbage cans,
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The New York Times

October 28, 2004The Boston Red Sox won the World Series.
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New York Times

May 17, 2004 Homosexuals were lining up to get married in Massachusetts, and President Bush again called for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
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CNN

February 5, 2004The Massachusetts Supreme Court ordered the state to permit homosexual marriages; Republicans were delighted.
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Associated Press

JANUARY 2009

THE $10 TRILLION HANGOVER
Paying the Price for Eight Years of Bush
By Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes

GO FORTH AND FALSIFY
Katherine Anne Porter and the lies of art
By William H. Gass

THE SANTOSBRAZZI KILLER
A story by Heidi Julavits

Also: Paul West and Siddhartha Deb